


Cabbage Dreams

by Writerleft



Series: Comes Marching Home [45]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Coping, Cute, F/F, Fluff, Sleep, Support, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 09:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11825628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerleft/pseuds/Writerleft
Summary: Asami wakes up and overhears a word. What is her wife talking about in the middle of the night?





	Cabbage Dreams

Typically, Asami slept like the dead. Largely because of the time she'd nearly died.

After the battle with Vaatu, Asami had needed months to recover. And as far as most people knew, she’d recovered fully. But for somebody who’d been accustomed to rising, naturally, before the sun, applying makeup and selecting her wardrobe, reading the papers, working all day, staying up well into the late hours on blueprints and proposals and doing it all again after six hours of sleep…

Now, she could barely function on less than ten.

Sacrifices had had to be made. More delegation than she was comfortable with. A regular mid-day nap, known to her coworkers as sacrosanct design time. Even—painful as the sacrifice was—having an aide drive her to work, while she ate and applied makeup in the car.

She was at peace with it. Mostly. Losing such a large percentage of her waking life was a definite loss, but compared to what may have happened…

She was still alive. She was with Korra—married to her, now! She’d made her sacrifice willingly, expecting not to take another breath—every hour she had afterwards was a bargain.

Still. She was even harder to wake up than Korra, now, and probably could sleep through another giant mecha attack.

It was a surprise to her, then, to wake up in the dark. More surprising still, that Korra wasn’t snuggled up beside her.

97% of Asami’s exhausted body demanded she roll back over, return to sleep, to be awake now was madness. If Korra had been there, she certainly would have.

Groaning like a mighty tree being felled, Asami tumbled to her feet, supporting herself on the wall as she blearily made her way out of the bedroom.

“Kr...rhhh,” she managed, seeing her wife not in the bathroom. Why was she bothering with this? Korra was probably getting water or something… if something were wrong, she’d have woken her up.

As Asami steadied herself in the hallway, she shivered. The balcony door was open, letting in the freezing night air.

Korra was leaning against the balcony, her shoulders scrunched tight. Pensive, and overheated—not a good combination for her.

Asami grabbed a blanket off the couch, wrapping herself up in it as she moved to join her wife. Just before she spoke, though, Korra started muttering.

“That’s just a cabbage. Nobody likes cabbage. Get out of here with that stuff, cabbage lady.”

Asami blinked, her hand hovering a foot from Korra’s shoulder. Had she nodded off out here? Was she… having a vegetable dream? Weirder things had happened with her. “Korra?”

Korra jerked, eyes wide as she turned toward Asami. She saw her, and relaxed, putting on a grin. “Hey.”

“You okay?”

“Am I okay? Sure. You’re the one who shouldn’t be awake.”

“You weren’t smiling.”

“And then I saw you.”

“You… are you saying you just smiled because it was me, or did you smile so I wouldn’t see you weren’t?”

“How can you sound so articulate when your eyes are falling shut?”

Asami forced them open, then draped the blanket over Korra too. “Nightmares?”

Korra sighed, and nodded. “Some new wrinkles, and some of the same old stuff.”

Well, dealing with the ‘same old stuff’ first, “I adore you,” Asami said. “And I’m endlessly proud of you. I mean, I’m out here, awake _and_ freezing. I clearly hold you in high regard.”

Korra chuckled. “Okay, I can take a hint…” she moved them away from the railing, then scooped Asami up, carrying her back inside and closing the sliding door with her foot.

Asami nuzzled her head on Korra’s shoulder, so safe in her arms, so warm, and…

No, no don’t sleep. Korra. Stay up for Korra. “Couch,” she managed.

Korra sat, setting Asami half-beside and half-atop her. “You’re comfy,” Asami said, reaching up and tugging on her own ears, to wake herself up a little. “And sweet. Pretty lady. Strong…”

“Am I losing you?”

Asami shook her head fiercely. Maybe she should get some tea?

“How about I talk to you about it in the morning?”

“But… right now?”

“I’m fine,” Korra reassured her, straightening her hair. “I’ll be with you when you wake up.”

Asami tried to turn to face her, but mostly just rolled onto her side. Still, she pressed a finger into Korra’s chest. “Don’t you let me forget!”

“I won’t,” Korra promised, bringing her legs up and straightening the blanket over both of them.

 

*

 

Korra didn’t know when she dozed off, but she and Asami slept in peace until the morning sun attacked. Only the Avatar, with one hand free of their marital tangle, could keep it out of her wife’s eyes and let her keep slumbering.

Finally, though, Asami stirred, then looked around in confusion for a moment.

“Hi,” Korra said, watching Asami’s mind put itself together.

“Couch,” Asami observed.

“Mhm,” Korra said, kissing Asami behind the ear.

“You were… outside…” Asami said, like she was piecing together a great mystery. “Something about… cabbages?”

Korra snorted. “Oh spirits, you heard that? I’m shocked you remembered it.”

“I don’t,” Asami shook her head. “What were you doing with cabbages last night?”

Korra pinched Asami’s cheeks. “You’re too adorable, you know that?”

Asami rolled her eyes. “Was everything okay?”

Korra kissed the bridge of Asami’s nose, and helped her sit up. Probably, she could let the matter slide if she wanted, but she’d made a promise. And Asami forgetting it was no reason to not honor it. “I’m not sure what woke you up, but I’d had some of my nightmares.”

“Oh,” Asami said, stretching her arms. “New stuff, or old stuff?”

“A little of both,” Korra shrugged.

“Well… starting with the old—”

“We already had this part of the conversation.”

“What, that means I don’t get to say I love you again? Do I have a maximum quota on letting you know I adore every little bit of you?”

Korra grinned, looking down, absentmindedly fingering her hair.

Asami took her hand, looking Korra in the eye. “Or is it, I tell you so often, reassure you so often, that you’re starting to get afraid that it’s rote? That I just say it automatically? Because Korra… it’s not that at all. I adore you fresh and new every morning I wake up with you.”

“You… oh,” Korra said. She hadn’t even realized that thought before Asami cut it off at the knees. “You know me way too well.”

“Which is why I adore you,” Asami said, kissing Korra’s nose back. She squeezed Korra’s hands, then settled them in their laps. “Now… what’s new? The meeting with Katara?”

Korra nodded. “It’ll be fine. It’s just a really sensitive topic for her, and she’s so _old_ anyway… maybe it’s not even worth it to ask? Maybe she’s too old to train—”

Asami ran the back of her fingers along Korra’s cheek. “It’s a good idea, even if it’s an uncomfortable one. I’ll be there with you. Okay?”

“I just want to get it over with,” Korra admitted. “I hate the idea that Katara might spend the rest of her life hating me.”

“She won’t,” Asami said, and somehow, that let her believe it. She’d tried telling herself that for hours last night, but Asami, in two words…

“Okay,” Korra said, cuddling her face into Asami’s hand. “Okay. Remind me, though?”

“Of course,” Asami smiled, then wrapped her arm around Korra’s shoulder so they could lean against each other.

Moments like this meant so, so much. All her darkest thoughts vanished into dust when Asami was near her like this.

That’s dangerous, though. You rely so much on her. You made her your wife—the whole world knows how to get to you now.

Korra shut her eyes. Why could she never be rid of these stupid—

“What were the cabbages about, then?” Asami asked.

She knew their hearts were connected, but sometimes, Asami could be downright spooky. “It’s silly.”

“I like silly,” Asami said. “Unless it’s bothering you. Then I hate it.”

Korra thought back, to the fight with Vaatu, with all the self-loathing and negativity that she’d learned and he’d used against her. How close she’d felt to losing her mind. How close she’d been to losing Asami, to losing everything. “I… it’s a nickname I made for my voices. For all the bad things I think about myself. When I’ve got enough self-awareness to recognize the unhealthy thoughts, I found, if I gave them a silly name, it took the teeth out of them. After all, cabbages don’t have teeth.”

Asami chuckled. “Not that I’ve ever seen. That’s… that sounds like a good coping mechanism, Korra. But why _cabbages_?”

“Because all those bad thoughts are just like your competitor: they just make everything worse.”

Asami coughed. Then she giggled. Then she lost control entirely, laughing her way to the floor.  

A grin split Korra’s face as she moved down to join her, resting Asami’s head in her lap as she collected herself.

“Oh… oh Korra…” she finally put together, “I need to tell that one to my advertisers.”

Korra smiled down at the flushed beauty beneath her. Asami stared right back.

She wouldn’t have to worry about cabbages for a while.

 

  
_Fanart courtesy of koala-crit_

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Visit me on my tumblr! Say hi! ](https://threehoursfromtroy.tumblr.com/)


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